MeetUrPro is expanding its operations pan India by establishing its presence in Bengalure, Mumbai, and Delhi, reports K Chandra MohanSince 2014 December, Laxman Prasad, a CA, has been partnering with ‘MeetUrPro’, a Chennai-based startup, which provides all sorts of professional services starting from personal taxation, real estate deeds, salary structuring, compliance management and international taxation. “Technology is transforming the lives of people. Any service can partner with MeetUrPro. I am getting good business and can work from anywhere. It’s like providing services online”, says Laxman. In July, 2014, Divakar Vijayasarathy and Rajesh Inbasekaran founded ‘MeetUPro, a one stop-shop for all kinds of legal and tax requirements. A dedicated team of 1200 at MeerUrPro were expanding their network with reliable and affordable services across the nation. Sanjeeth Suman, a Patna-based lawyer who collaborated with MeetUrPro, is rendering services to Ranchi clients. “I am able to offer services to my clients who approach meetUrPro. The client, who approached me through MeetUrPro, is quite happy about the fee that I charged for him”. MeetUrPro offers various services with multiple pricing options. Consumers have the flexibility of choosing the pricing. The end team reduces the initial engagement time, and the chain management team monitors every stage of delivery. The services offered by MeetUrPro are 50 per cent cheaper than those offered by brick and mortar companies. MeetUrPro gets 5-10 per cent margin over a single transaction. Divakar Vijayasarthy, Co-Founder, MeetUrPro.com says, “We are offering a reliable online platform for professionals to expand their business through connecting with businesses and individuals. The customer can choose his option and benefits and is given access to standardised professional services.” According to Vijayasarthy, every transaction at MeetUrPro.com is tracked. Deadlines are adhered to, and high-quality service is provided through a secure workflow management software (TIMI), thus ensuring trustworthy transactions across geographies. The company is registering 50 to 100 transactions per week. And continuously growing and managing today’s marketplace as far as options, pricing and an organised scheme of delivery are concerned. MeetUrPro’s startup clinic will offer fall the services required to start a business right from the incorporation to ongoing compliance requirements, including receipt of certificate of incorporation, PAN , TAN, DIN, liaison for opening bank accounts, consultancy on VAT and Service Tax registration, RBI and FEMA compliance for inbound investments. Vijayasarthy says, “For the Startup Clinic, both online and offline, the initial consultation fee is zero. We guide customers in picking and choosing those of our products which would be required for their stream of business. The prices are market-determined, and we do not have any say in them.” MeetUrPro is expanding its operations pan India by establishing its presence in Bengalure, Mumbai, and Delhi shortly. Divakar Vijayasarathy is firm on consolidating Indian market and by 2017, will begin operations overseas and to reach $1 million in revenues.
Read More
Online higher education could be worth Rs 6000 crore domestically if startups can scale up their customer acquisition programmes, writes Vishal KrishnaAfter three years of setting up processes and courses to train executives in data analytics Jigsaw Academy, a tech-enabled education startup, has signed term sheets with a couple of investors to raise $3.5 million. If the deal comes through in 3 months then we will see other tech focused education companies, like Simplilearn, either raising more money or buying online voice and video education platforms.Jigsaw Academy was founded by data scientists Gaurav Vohra and Sarita Digumarti. The company has in three years hit a turnover of Rs 12 crore per year and employs over 70 people. It focuses on making executives use data more efficiently rather than just collating data. The company declined to comment on the fund raising. But mentioned that it's course work was becoming popular in the USA, India and South East Asia. "We are not a course aggregator. Our courses are built in house by a team of data scientists and focuses on subject understanding," says Gaurav Vohra, founder of Jigsaw Academy. According to the Indian Brand Equity Foundation, the online education industry can be worth $40 billion by 2017. This includes all forms of education. However, online higher education could be worth Rs 6000 crore domestically if startups can scale up their customer acquisition programmes. There is a need to skill 300 million Indians by 2015 and companies like Jigsaw fall in the middle of enabling this growth.
Read More
The website allows users to navigate through a process of increasingly streamlined refinement, purely based on visuals. Simar Singh reportsThe struggle to find exactly what you want online is often very real. Looking to simplify this very problem, e-tailing giant Snapdeal, at a preview at their Okhla office introduced findmystyle.in, a fashion product discovery engine that works by allowing users to navigate through a process of increasingly streamlined refinement, purely based on visuals. The company’s Chief Product Officer, Anand Chandrasekaran, describing the engine as a “open technology playground” that could be used by in-house engineers and users alike, said, “The feature will further enhance customer experience and make online shopping faster, better and more informative. With the introduction of findmystyle.in, we are looking to create an experimental playground and set the base for our image modelling, product search and discovery technology.” The website which is now live, allows users to make an initial selection of the category they are looking to make a purchase in after which, all kinds of variations of styles pertaining to the selection are clustered together and presented, from this the narrowing down process starts. Once, the user likes a particular style, they have the option of viewing similar products and are eventually redirected to the product page on Snapdeal’s flagship e-store, where they can complete the purchase. “Different strokes for different folks”, says Chandrasekaran explaining the rationale behind the entire mechanism and its attempt to essentially visually assist where description on an indivitual level often fails. “I might like a dress at a party, so I know what I want but can’t really describe it,” he says adding that this was where visuals would help a user identify what they are looking for. Chandrasekaran hopes that findmystyle.in’s image based discovery model will help the company understand how offline behaviour finds itself online and how this can be recreated and accommodated in the overall shopping experience. There are no plans of integrating findmystyle.in with snapdeal.com as of now and Chandrasekaran hopes that the product will “find its own niche”. The company does have plans to prompt regular Snapdeal users to try findmystyle.in by featuring it on the flagship store, however, how this is to be enabled is still being worked out. The site has been developed at Snapdeal’s Multimedia Research Lab in Bangalore and is the brain child of research scientists Gaurav Aggarwal, Nikhil Rasiwasia and Deepthi Singh. The trio had earlier founded Fashiate, a tech start-up that was acquired by the Snapdeal in March this year. According to Chandrasekaran, this research lab will see an investment of $100 million in the next two to three years. Findmystyle.in will currently only be available on web, as this, according to Snapdeal, works best with their plans to use the platform as a playground where algorithms and use cases can be tested and quickly changed.
Read More
Ability to quickly get a customer on board, scale at will and deliver a performant system will determine how you set yourself apart from others, writes Rahul JoshiRecently I was part of a spirited discussion with my fellow partners and advisors on positioning one of our products. Question at the table was who is your target customer for what you have built? We had launched a couple of products as part of our business software application suit. Coming from a technical background, our focus from beginning was to ensure our software covers all the business processes that an organization may come across. Over a period of time as we kept getting to know about scenarios not addressed by our software goal was to quickly turn around and account for it. In the quest of not coming across as lacking, improvements to the product preferring efficiency of speed over design were a priority. Soon it grew richer in function and feature which we could boast to show the depth in our product line. However it had a down side the way we approached it. Support and maintenance grew significantly for things that could be termed as “bolted on” to the product over the course of time. When few well-wishers with a business mind started asking questions as to, “Who are your primary customers”? “What core business problem you are trying to solve for them?” that forced us to re-think our strategy of being everything for everyone. Although this seems obvious in hindsight, however it wasn’t until we experienced it that it came to full realization. In fact offering everything under the sunis something startups should diligently avoid. It does not make sense from a cost perspective either where your financial resources are always constrained. There are several advantages to knowing the space you are going to operate in. To start with, it helps narrow down your competition. With a well-defined set you can do a better job of competitive analysis. We would often go in and pitch our entire list of features and functions. Lot of money and time was spent on it so we wanted to let the prospect know we have it. However it would discourage some prospective customers who were looking for only a subset of what we had to offer. It created a perception that since it has so many things it would be expensive than the other guy. Of course ultimately we also had to compete on the price with the other players who had limited functionality but covered the customer’s needs. The flip side was also true with large deployments. We matched the requirement but it carried the risk of coming up short in terms of showcasing it as a platform that can adapt to changing business needs. Knowing who you are building it for also helps set up and align your internal teams. Hiring the right technical skills, identifying appropriate technology platform, identifying early customers all can be determined accordingly. If targeting a common problem for which a solution is offered at low prices, one needs to capture a larger share of the market. It’s a volume business. Ability to quickly get a customer on board, scale at will and deliver a performant system will determine how you set yourself apart from others. On the other hand in a niche area where it is solving a critical business problem, precision and reliability may take precedence over other factors. It is an attractive proposition for investors as well to see a product targeted to a specific market as it helps gauge the potential and thereby their return on investment. A business in consumer retail that appeals globally has criteria on how it’s valued while a B2B business that caters to niche industry has its own way of determining what constitutes a good rate of return on investment. It goes a long way when you can clearly convey what it is that you do and how you can help my business. Not only does it showcase expertise in this area but also that you believe in it strongly to justify all the time and resources you have thrown at it. It gives the customer confidence that they will not be left alone when they sign up for your product. Figuring out your target customer is not just true with software where I first experienced it. The same principle applies to almost any other product. If you are running an e-commerce site dedicated to a specific area may it be apparel, crafts, electronics or any other, due diligence must be done on your target customer. Is it about affordable products or making a fashion statement? Is it about consumers who are early adapters of technology or is it about folks who are looking for well proven products and the experience it provides? For one of the e-commerce sites I am associated with, we are often tempted to carry products which complement our offering. They are very appealing and believe will be well liked. However, the test it has to pass is does it fit the overall theme and nature of the products we say we offer and our customers expect of us? Too much deviation and you may start diluting the very brand you are looking to build. There is no right or wrong option. There is a market to be served in each case, however you must choose. “Indeed we are in this market” is an excellent choice. “We chose not to be in this market segment” is wonderful as well. However “we cater to all segments” may leave you with a short runway, often knocked down by the established players in each segment. Where does your product stand? Now is the time to choose. The author, Rahul Joshi, is a start-up entrepreneur and founder of nectarfarm.com
Read More
Information platforms to crawl the web to pick relevant content for marketers to make their campaigns become more personal. Vishal Krishna reports The name of the digital game today is “engaging” the consumer. The consumers, so far, discover content by themselves and are very often in a fix about the pertinence of the content consumed. But how does a marketing company discover the right content and continue a lasting engagement over a campaign or even try to engage the consumer personally. The answer lies with engineers. Startups such as AirLoyal, DrumUp and IceCream Labs are helping companies to take information and re-market them to consumers. These technology companies are self-funded companies and have now achieved reasonable scale to raise funds. They are betting on their intellectual property, the data engineering and analytics engines, to make their pitch stronger, which is to tell marketers that they need these platforms to make campaigns effective to keep a customer loyal to the brand. Big Brands are spending at least, Rs 100 crore, each year in trying to increase engagement over the web and soon this number is only going to go up significantly. GroupM, the media buying agency, says that the total market for digital spends hit only Rs 3,400 crore in 2014, expected to double by 2018, which is less than 7 per cent of the total marketing spends in the country. However, in the net, it is very important to find early influencers and marketers for engaging the digital citizens. Today a campaign drives up traffic on a website or an app and then the traffic dies because of lack of continuous engagement. IceCream Labs worked with Lifestyle, the Rs 4000-crore retailer, to make the retailer’s private label brand “Code” to reach the relevant target audience on the web. Every time a person made a search for the word “Farhan Akthar” and entered a website, images of Farhan Akthar wearing Lifestyle’s collection appeared as a banner. “The algorithms are powerful because they recognise images and bring it as part of content during campaigns,” says Madhu Konety, founder of Icecream Labs. This is also a new form of ad-technology where content is preferred over plain banners. Icecream Labs has raised two rounds of angel funding, sources say the amount raised is close to $250,000 or Rs1.50 crore. Similarly, DrumUp helps marketers crawl the web and get content which is relevant to their brands. “Discovery of content has to become an engagement. Today content is what ad-technology companies are after,” says Vishal Dutta, founder of DrumUp. This startup is building a Business-to-Business (B2B) and a consumer strategy. “Today organisations are willing to pay to get relevant content,” says Dutta. The consumer can use our app to get content for free, which will be the data on which DrumUp will engage businesses. They are currently in talks to close a $1 million (Rs 6 crore) round. They are in many ways similar to HootSuite, based in the USA and started in 2008, which raised $285 million to help companies their social media platforms. “Today TV is still important for engagement, but with the growth of marketing smartphones will use this channel increasingly because of it can be customised,” says Hemanth Rupani, VP Sales for Britannia India. The ideas do not stop there. AirLoyal, a Chennai based startup, has signed up over 20 companies and are signing a vendor agreement with a large FMCG company to make their campaigns powerful. Their app “Ladoo” is doing two things, first, it makes consumers take simple questions on the app, on behalf of brands, for which they receive free vouchers that can be redeemed on different brands. Second, it provides brands a platform to ask questions and get responses on trending topics. This campaign ignition platform can also be white labelled for marketers. It provides dashboards based on various variables fed in to the software based on the kind of the questions the marketing team chooses to input on to the platform. “This is a far better way of engaging consumers, than throwing in banner ads across apps,” says Raja Hussain, co-founder of AirLoyal. The company competes with the likes of mCent, which has a similar business model. In India the per customer acquisition cost is larger than what they spend on a product. Today for 36 million customers, net savvy or smart phone savvy, advertisers spend Rs 1100 per person. The ad spends are made on acquisition of the customer rather than engaging them. At least these startups are going to play a prominent part in making marketing meaningful.
Read More
Sankara Srinivasan (BW Photo by Bivash Banerjee)There are several real estate portals in India that are trying to change the way consumers discover and buy real estate market. However no one has achieved growth in client acquisition, revenues and profits. Fundamentally none of the portals have solved systemic issues which deny information to the consumer and leave them in the dark while buying a house. Portals are spending heavily on marketing in TV, social media and the net. But the customer knows that if he wants to buy a property he searches for the name of the builder directly. It is difficult for real estate portals to survive if they do not add value. Here is how the real story unfolds: The truth (notice how a consumer makes a search on Google about one suburb called Hebbal in Bangalore): It is clearly evident that the home buyers are choosing homes based on brand identity of the builder rather than using broader search metrics to find the right home. From the above table we can estimate that monthly traffic is 5,000,000 (for top 40 builders, 500 projects) in Bangalore alone. The total expected traffic for new projects will be, across top 8 cities in India, will go over 100 million. In comparison with this traffic, the leading real estate portals fall flat. Existing portals, which have raised large sums of money, are not the destination of choice to find new homes. People are influenced by advertisements of builders alone. Home buyers find unique problems like understanding the quality of builder, fair price of the project, growth in price of a location and land ownership details. Realtycompass.com and other portals are now trying to build unique features like builder ratings and floor efficiency (super built up to carpet area ratio and feedback is now being taken on experience with builders) which creates transparency, for people, in real estate market. What Do The Home Buyers Want?Though the real estate portals are having huge inventory and offer a 360 degree view that is the 3D floor plan; it still does not provide some basic information. Portals still need to build the following.1. Reputation of builder – Whether the company delivered the project in time in past, quality of construction, promoters’ track record, litigation against the builder and educational qualifications.2. Project approvals- Clear land title, compliance to approvals, building construction without deviations, bank approvals, extent of encroachment on the project.3. Fair price – recent transaction price for the project, comparative analysis of rates of similar rated projects, total inclusive price of projects (basic rate plus other charges), white versus black money component, calculated price based on credentials of project (amenities, specifications, possession, materials to be used etc)4. Location details – zoning of location, accessibility to basic infrastructure & civic amenities, water scarcity, safetyDue to lack of above information home buyers are not able to make decision on buying home online and relying on brokers, friends, brand name to conclude their home purchase process. The Way Forward:There are approximately 8,00,000 houses are getting sold in top 8 cities in India over the next few years. The total sales and marketing spend (including brokerage) of builders on these houses are expected be around Rs 20,000 crores. This gives a great opportunity to solve big pain points that the home buyers are facing today. The real estate regulation bill, once enacted, it will solve lot of problems such as stopping the builder from transferring money from one project to another to acquire land and punish willful delays in completion of project. Portals can solve many of the problems through technology. Intelligent apps can report real time inventory based on crowd sourcing, insurance for delay in possession of projects (high premium for disrepute builders would create market pressure on them) are some of the new features that can solve night mares to millions of people in India. The question is are we doing it right.The author, Sankara Srinivasa Aiyyathurai, is Chief Operating Officer of Realtycompass.com https://www.linkedin.com/in/sankara24@asankar24
Read More
All successful people are first positive people. Don't fall for the cliché "to fail is ok", then you can't give your best, says Vaidyanathan the former MD and CEO of ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Company to Businessworld's Paramita Chatterjee Entrepreneurs often give up after a great start for lack of perseverance or for lack of scaling options. For any enterprise to work, we have to be entirely consumed with it, and work towards it like a possessed person. To say that failure is the stepping stone to success is just a cliché, we can't say to fail is fine, says V Vaidyanathan, the former MD and CEO of ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Company, who in 2010, wore an entrepreneurial hat, bought a stake in an NBFC and formed Capital First through a buyout transaction. Since then, he has converted the wholesale NBFC to a Retail finance company, and grown from a mere Rs 935 crore in 2010 to over Rs 12,000 crore today. What’s more, he also managed to rope in Warburg Pincus to fund his venture at a time when private equity investors took a cautious approach towards funding! BW began by asking him what his success tips are for emerging entrepreneurs. Passion to Create Something: The most important thing is to be driven and motivated. If there is a great idea in and we feel we have a good chance at it, don’t let it languish! Besides, creating a new brand and name for ourselves, we can create thousands of jobs. After all, creating a business and seeing it scale is a great feeling for anyone. Don’t depend on luck: When we were looking for a PE to back us, we were out there frantically searching them and seeking them out day in and day out. Nothing falls in our lap. Yes if we keep searching, some accidental meeting happens, some serendipity does occur. Our QIP attempt in 2011 failed, but a PE backing happened when we kept trying. No pitying ourselves when things go wrong: We are not unique in facing trouble, and we are where we are because of our own actions.. Every entrepreneur you know or read about has had challenges, who hasn’t. All successful people are first positive people. Don't fall for the cliché "to fail is ok", then you can't give your best. We can't afford to- we have a responsibility to our own image, or family, our colleagues, and all well-wishers who are backing us. Credibility is everything. Don’t overpromise. Present strongly the case to prospective partners, shareholders, employees. Over time reputation spreads in the market. Depending on how we conduct yourselves, people want or don’t want to associate with us. We have to be worthy of their trust. Our employees are ‘entrepreneurs’ too: I believe anybody who goes thru the pangs of decision- making, takes decisions, is directly impacted, and lives with the consequences of the decisions is an entrepreneur; we are not the only one. Our employees are as much owners in our venture. This is how you can attract good talent and retain them. Otherwise, why will great employees of other great established organisations leave and join our fledgling start-ups? Weare nobody without our partners.
Read More
Whether to join or not, if you are dicey about whether to join a startup or continue to work with the corporate, this Good Vs Bad of the startup world can help you take a better decision for your career. Check out these points to identify what is right for you.Work EnvironmentInformal atmosphere, flat hierarchies, open mindedness are some terms that perfectly describe work environment at a Startup. So, if you are bored of your organisation’s formal work environment, then startups have a better place to work at for you.Real Ownership & ResultsBy working at a startup, you can have a freedom to work. If you have an idea, execute it, and come up with the results. There is no need to follow a hierarchy and take multiple approvals. In case, your idea is a big hit, just enjoy the equity.ExperienceStartup gives you ample of opportunities to take decisions and that too quickly. This would not just help you in learning but also help in gaining experience in case you have plans to initiate your own startup.Sense Of AccomplishmentWorking at a startup gives tremendous & quantifiable impact. Startups give you a position to be an integral part of the system that plays an important part in the fine working of the business. The sense of accomplishment one gets from this is something that money can't buy.Diverse Work DayWork day at startup is not like 9-5 corporate job. You do not have to go to office to do the defined tasks & come back home. Instead every day, in fact every minute can be unpredictable about work. There are different clients and different work, and you would have to manage all simultaneously. So, one another best aspect about working at a start-up is, you won't be bored!The Bad SideLack of structure: Due to inexperience of leadership, if management loses sight of team/cost/communication of strategy with investment, then one has to face the consequences and bear the burden.Perk-less Salaries: Yes, startups have fund raising issues. So, do not expect big salary package in the beginning. There is even no scope of any sort of perks or monetary benefits in the initial years of the Startup.Lack Of Work Life Balance: Startup also means a lot of work, which demands extended work hours. You might enjoy flexibility in work style, however it would surely demand more time from you. So, be prepared to give extended working hours to your job and compromise with work life balance at initial stage of startup.Job Insecurity: Your career is directly proportional to the growth of the company. If its future at stake, so is your career. Chances of instability are thus high with startup companies.Now that you know the good and bad side of working at startups, take decisions wisely and then work hard to enjoy success.Courtesy: CareerBuilder India
Read More
